King's X Ogre Tour Concert Review

[Yesspaz]

Originally Posted by Yesspaz

10.19.05 Birmingham, AL @ The Nick Spaz here!
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Ah, opening night of the Ogre Tour. Birmingham, AL. The Nick. Well, here we go.

I timed it perfectly to miss the opening band. Who cares. I'm there five minutes and the King hits the stage at 11:15. We clap. They check tuning. Blah blah blah. Doug says, "Hello. We've got a new album out. Anyone heard it?" About have of us hoot and holler. Doug says, "Good, 'cause you're about to hear the whole thing tonight." Immediately click click click click go the sticks of Jerry, and the band crunches down on "Mudd." Interesting choice to open the show. It's slow, and it's a funeral lament. I think it was a great spot for it though because anywhere else in the show it would have killed the momentum, and who's not excited at the first song? Great song.

What follows is the setlist and some commentary. I'll start by saying that it was a relatively short show. I mean, they played an hour and forty five minutes, but it was only 19 songs. But what was great about it is that they did something I've not heard of a veteran band doing in a long time - They played the whole new album (YES, I love ya, but take notes). King's X only played 7 earlier songs. I felt really bad for the folks who hadn't bought the new album that plunked down $18 to see King's X perform 7 songs they knew. Well, I actually don't feel bad for them; if you like a band you should support them and buy the disc!

Setlist:

Mudd
Stay
Fly
Hurricane
If
She's Gone Away
Sooner or Later
Looking For Love
Mr. Wilson
A Box
Honesty
Open My Eyes
Get Away
Freedom
Bebop
Alone
Visions
Over My Head
We Were Born to be Loved

Notes:
On "She's Gone Away" Ty played a longer solo than on the album that was so hot it melted the steel factory down the street. On it and the "Sooner or Later" solo he used the volume knob a lot to get those volume swell effects. Flawless technique as always. During the "quiet part" of "She's Gone Away," right before the last chorus, where Doug is just hitting the bare bass riff really softly, he flubbed big time and made a fret fart that was grossly loud for the moment. The whole band stopped playing and just exploded in laughter, as did we. They couldn't get back to that chorus correctly so after they stopped laughing, which took a few seconds, Jerry counted back in for what was supposed to be the breakdown.

On "A Box," they've worked in a little spot where they slow the chords down and make it "bigger" ballad style so that Doug has a moment to do his rant he used to do in "Believe." He talked about not letting people tell you who you and stuff like that, you know - "There is no room inside a box, there is no room inside."

"Open My Eyes" seemed to be the big favorite of the new stuff. It's not my favorite from Ogre Tones but live it was a monster.

Of course, they saved the best three for last (at least from a live standpoint): "Freedom," "Bebop," and "Alone." Of course "Freedom" and "Bebop" ruled. What amazed me is that I figured on "Bebop" they'd sort of improv the "funky" bits. No sir! It was note-perfect flawlessness from Ty and Jerry! Doug's parts are relatively easy there. But Holy Flying Monkeys! There was a guy by me who didn't have the new album who said, "That was amazing." And he was right. Seriously, if you're on the fence about going to see this show, seeing them do "Bebop" is worth the price of addmission alone.


After "Visions" (which freaking ruled, as always) Doug said, "We were going to leave the stage and come back and do and encore, but what's the point? Where would we go? So, we're just gonna keep playing, alright?" The Nick is a small club. If they left the stage we'd be able to see them unless they went outside. They played "Over My Head" the old way, like on the album, instead of the slower staccato way they've done lately. Sadly, they didn't drag out the "Music, music, I hear music. Music, music, I hear music. Music, Oh oh oh Lord. Music over my head." part like before. Usually they let it get real quiet and let the crowd sing - like U2 does on "40." They blasted through "Born" - and there's your show.

What they didn't play is as interesting as what they did play. No "Dogman." No "Groove Machine." No "Believe." No "Sometime." No "Goldilox." No "Summerland." Frankly, it was refreshing to not hear most of those, but I really wanted "Dogman." In my opinion, that's their "Roundabout" or "Where the Streets Have No Name." You can say that Yes should quit playing those same old songs and dig out some album cuts, but when you're at the show, you want "Roundabout."

Afterwards, Doug and Jerry went to the merch table, Ty went to the bus. Pretty standard. Ty may have come out later but I left pretty quickly. Luckily I was the third person to get to talk to Doug. I wish I had a camera with me. Next time I will. But I purposefully wore my blue "Groove" shirt to get Doug to sign. I shook his hand and told him that along with Chris Squire he was one of my two bass heroes, and would he sign my shirt. He said, "Chris Squire, man. Shoooooot." He said it in that way of great admiration. He's said in interviews before that Chris Squire was on of his greatest bass influences along with the guy from The Family Stone (name?), James Browns' bassist (name?), among others. He said it was listening to Yes that taught him his bass had high notes on it. Anyway, he signed my shirt, and as he was writing, I said, "You can't think of groove without thinking of Pinnick." He said, "Bless, you man," in that way that you know he really appreciated hearing it. If you know much about Doug, you know he's the kind of guy who needs encouragement. So, I shook his hand again, told him to come back to Birmingham every year, and he said they will, and I hit the door. I didn't bother trying to get to Jerry - he had some folks around him and I didn't want to wait. After all, it was 1:00 am I had to go to class today.

After the third or fourth song (during the first guitar switch) when it got quiet enough, I yelled "How are those opening night jitters?" And Ty said, "Pretty jittery! But only because it's all new stuff. We've never played this stuff before in front of people." They did pretty well. There were a few places where Ty didn't get back to the mic for his vocal part in time. Doug missed only one lyric the whole night. Ty almost messed up the arrangement on "Open My Eyes," perhaps the trickiest structurally of the new stuff. He forgot the second "open my eyes" measure after the pre-chorus. He was going straight to "What does it take to get to the point where you want to kill someone." But before that, they come out of the pre-chorus, and go back to that one measure of singing "open my eyes." Very tricky arrangement, and he missed it the first time, but Doug didn't miss it and Ty caught it so quickly that unless you were looking for it, you'd have never known. I was looking for it because I wanted to see if they could remember that arrangment the first time they played it live! They 99.9% did. Ty nailed it the other three times in the song, of course.


SO, should you go see this show? Duh! If you are a King's X fan, you need to see this show if possible, but by all means, KNOW the new album backwards and forwards, because they played the whole thing. Last time I know of a band playing an entire new album was Yes doing Talk in 1994.

Ok, I'm done now.

[Bob Lentil]

Thanks for the review. I'm glad they're playing all the new stuff, because I easily get bored hearing the same songs over and over. I'll be catching a show in either Cleveland or Pittsburgh.